The drawing up as well as the maintaining and availability of information, in particular of information relating to system processes and their illustration and logging, are gaining increasing importance primarily in the field of industry. In the scope of so-called management systems with which all product-related processes and structures in a plant or organization unit are defined, it is necessary to be able to make changes in existing processes, in their sequencing in their structuring as well as in control systems and subject descriptions in the most uncomplicated possible way, and to make the changed or freshly drawn up paperwork available as a document for all co-workers.
It is generally regarded as advantageous in this context if, when a new document is being drawn up, it is possible to resort to existing documentation or parts thereof. For example, documentation describing generally applicable regulations, defining standardized procedures or procedures specific to operating systems, or containing a similar representations which have already been drawn up, may be or need to be contained in a new document.
In order to meet these requirements and in order, in particular, to make changed or newly drawn up documents available to the relevant individuals as quickly as possible, information collation and storage supported by data processing techniques as well as data transmission via a private, for example in-house data network have been proposed.